E prescribing is rapidly expanding as more hospitals are finding these services do provide an improved and safer method for handling prescription medications while reducing costs. With medication errors resulting in over 7,000 deaths in the United States, e prescribing can reduce this risk. Most deaths that occur from medication errors involve allergic reactions, incorrect dosages or illegible handwriting and with physicians writing more than 3 billion prescriptions each year, this can leave room for medication errors. E prescribing can help to prevent these errors from occurring.

What is E Prescribing?

E prescribing is a method of writing medications electronically through an automated system. This data-entry system contains software for generating prescriptions as well as a secure network that directly communicates with pharmacies. Using a handheld device or a computer that contains e-prescribing software, those who prescribe medications can access a patient's medication history, their prescription benefit information and send prescriptions directly to the pharmacy.

Benefits of E-Prescribing for Hospitals

The benefits of using this new and innovative software for prescription medications are numerous. Utilizing e-prescribing software technology can reduce the costs of healthcare while improving the safety of patients. It also offers hospitals improved efficiency by reducing paperwork, phone communication time and provides the patient with needed medication in a more rapid manner. With the ability to access a patient's medication history easily, this improves patient safety and reduces the risks of adverse drug reactions. This medication history service is invaluable for accessing patient's medication history, which includes all drugs, dosages, how many were dispensed and the phone numbers of physicians who prescribed the medications. Having quick access to this information can help extremely in circumstances that require knowing exactly what medications patients are currently taking as well as have taken in the last year. This patient information can be accessed 7 days a week, 24 hours a day. Systems can also be setup for sharing information among different hospitals worldwide. This offers physicians the easy ability to consult with specialists anywhere in the world.

Physicians who are required to write numerous prescription medications daily can benefit from e prescribing. With the system's medication management program, doctors can cross check patient's newly prescribed medications with previous medications to prevent any anomalies. This can reduce medication allergic reactions and drug reactions. This program also assist the physician by checking the prescribed medication with the patient's weight, age and sex for appropriateness, proper dosage, previous drug reactions, duplicate prescriptions and contraindications. If problems are found, the physician is alerted automatically.